I & I Editorial BoardMore than a year after the events at Lafayette Square happened, and after endless media claims that President Donald Trump had peaceful protesters forcibly cleared for a photo op, we finally know the truth. Trump was right. The media were lying. And anyone who trusted the news accounts was a fool.
It’s enough to make us start to wonder why anyone should trust the media’s insistence that there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
Yesterday, the Interior Department’s inspector general released a report about what actually happened in Lafayette Square on June 1, 2020. As a refresher, here’s how the media reported it:
- “Peaceful Protesters Tear-Gassed To Clear Way For Trump Church Photo Op”
- “Protesters Dispersed With Tear Gas So Trump Could Pose at Church”
- “Tear gas, flash-bangs used to clear protesters from Lafayette Square before surprise President Trump photo op”
- “Republicans chastise Trump for ousting protesters, church photo op”
- “Tear Gas Clears Way for Trump Moment at Church Damaged in Unrest”
Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats repeatedly trotted this story out during the presidential campaign to besmirch Trump
It was all a lie.
* The park wasn’t cleared for Trump. IG Mark Greenblatt says that the Park Service “cleared the park to allow a contractor to safely install anti-scale fencing … several hours before they knew of a potential presidential visit to the park.”
* The protests weren’t “peaceful.” As the IG report says: “The Treasury Annex building was vandalized; officers were assaulted with projectiles, such as bottles and bricks; and a brick struck a USPP (U.S. Park Police) officer in the head, resulting in the officer’s hospitalization … USPP officers reported that some protesters threw projectiles, such as bricks, rocks, caustic liquids, frozen water bottles, glass bottles, lit flares, rental scooters, and fireworks, at law enforcement officials … 49 USPP officers were injured during the protests from May 29 to May 31, including one who underwent surgery for his injuries. ”
* The Park Police didn’t use tear gas. How about using the tear gas to clear out protesters? Turns out it was the Washington Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) that used tear gas, not the Park Police, and did so after the park had been cleared.
“The MPD assistant chief of police later confirmed that the MPD used CS gas on 17th Street and told us that it did so in response to protesters who engaged in acts of violence against MPD officers after the USPP cleared Lafayette Park and began pushing protesters toward 17th Street,” the report states.
The IG adds that the MPD “was not a part of nor under the control or direction of the USPP’s and the Secret Service’s unified command structure.”
There is no doubt that all of this information was accessible to reporters long before the IG report came out. (Reporters on the right were covering the story accurately.) Instead, the major press outlets simply ran with their Trump-bashing narrative, facts be damned.
If news reporters were doctors, they would be sued for malpractice – or worse – for this level of incompetence, negligence, and malice.
This is, of course, just one item in a long list of flagrant media lies and falsehoods all told to discredit Trump.
Reporter Sharyl Attkisson has helpfully been collecting a list. It includes the media’s lab-leak debacle, the phony Russia bounty story, the lies about Trump’s call to a Georgia election official, the false stories about the cause of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick’s death, the Russia collusion hoax, and on and on and on. Attkisson’s list now includes more than 150 specific examples of Trump-bashing media falsehoods.
The press might think it’s all justified, given the ends of trying to drive Trump – whom they determined was a danger to the country – from office or at least denying him a second term. If that’s true, what other sorts of actions would the mainstream media consider justified? Election tampering? Ballot stuffing? Mail-in voting fraud? Covering up said fraud?
We aren’t saying the election was stolen. But if the mainstream media can’t be trusted to tell the truth about something as simple as the Lafayette Square event when it involves Trump, please explain why we should believe them when they insist that widespread election fraud is a Trump-fueled lie?
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
Using these vague “policy violations,” Google is now threatening to demonetize us. It’s part of Big Tech’s effort to silence conservative voices.
If media is reporting, assume every word is a lie! I do and I am right more than I’m wrong!
It should be pointed out that the MPD didn’t admit to using tear gas until May 28th. So they let Trump take the blame for several months and then just before the report came out, they came clean. But also somewhat interesting is that in their statement they left out the contractor part.
The mainstream media in our fair country is part-and-parcel of the Democratic Party. It was not that way some few years ago, but the obloquy generated by certain specific Republicans has left liberal media no choice or so they think. I would like to believe that the pendulum will swing back toward the center some time soon, but I question that since both sides are so polarized now that it would require a quotient of intellectual honesty beyond what the MSM has. Another striking factor is the complete absence of shame and responsibility these ‘important’ talking heads and journalists assume when called to account. When opinion becomes equivalent to fact, there is no honest media.
The mainstream media are naught but dirty, dirty, smear merchants.